Thursday, March 8, 2012

One of the most popular molecular and cellular biology textbooks coauthored by James Watson, Molecular Biology of the Cell, 3rd Ed, in a section entitled “How Did Protein Synthesis Evolve?”, describes protein synthesis as “inexplicably complex.” Its underlying molecular processes, the student is told, “do not make conceptual sense” and the text goes on to wonder “Why should rRNA molecules exist at all … ?”

These comments are examples of how, as philosophers have pointed out many time, observations can be theory-laden. In the hands of evolutionists, fascinating and incredible molecular machines and processes don’t “make conceptual sense.” The text goes on to bemoan the fact that:

The complexity of a process with so many interacting components, has made many biologists despair of even understanding the pathway by which protein synthesis evolved.

But then student is told that all of these problems might be resolved by the RNA World hypothesis, so all is well.

First, I'm asking Cornelius, as he's the one who wrote the post and is making the argument.

Second, I'm not asking if the univers is incomprehensible. Rather, I'm asking if Cornelius thinks there is no difference between currently lacking a detailed, step by step explanation and assuming the universe, or some specific subset is incomprehensible in principle.

In other words, his argument seems to hinge on Watson implying the latter, not the former.